Without great gear, meleeing stops being a viable choice around level 20. Once mobs start doubling for 50+, tanking them isn't efficient unless you're sporting full totemic or better, and even then I wouldn't always do it. You end up having to heal yourself after every fight, and since you won't be medding at all, your killing pace becomes horrible. You also don't do any real damage unless you have one of those high-end 2hb weapons, all of which are pretty expensive.
Just root-rot from 20 to 34. It's not that bad, really; most blue mobs will straight up die to your Affliction+E-breath. Once you get your pet, you can try a few other approaches such as letting it tank or kiting around with it. Also note that Affliction appears to be bugged, or rather hasn't been reverted to its classic stats, so it deals more damage than it should. It currently ticks for as much as Envenomed Breath, lasts twice as long, and costs half the mana. I was gonna report this but I forgot about it until now.
Finally, forget about mana/wisdom. It's not important to a shaman. You'll eventually get some from your gear, which is fine, but don't go out of your way to get it at all. Your first major purchase should be two 5ac 55hp rings, and you should consider getting your totemic set as well. AC and HP are much more important, even if you don't actively tank your mobs all the time. Shamans tank fairly well, it's just that it isn't very effective when soloing for exp because you won't get much mana back and you'll have to spend it on healing yourself. A geared shaman can even tank alright for groups using Drowsy for aggro and with someone else to heal him. You can take the hits, you just can't keep up your damage output and self-healing while doing it until Kunark and Torpor.
|